Tools exist to aid with electronic document analysis, proofreading, and editing. Generally, such tools are software programs capable of interfacing with word processing software (e.g., Microsoft Word™) used to create the electronic document. For example, conventional tools are capable of obtaining extensive information about electronic documents that are normally opened in a word processing software program. This information may include characteristics describing the electronic document itself and/or characteristics describing the electronic document's text.
With regard to characteristics describing an electronic document itself, these characteristics may include information describing the number of paragraphs in the document, the size of the document, the creation date of the document, the last edit date of the document, security restrictions associated with the document, the file name of the document, etc. With regard to characteristics describing the electronic document's text, these characteristics may include information describing “primary attributes” of the text (e.g., whether specific text is capitalized and positional information regarding the text) and “secondary attributes” of the text (e.g., whether specific text is italicized, bolded, and/or underlined, the font size of specific text, the font type of specific text, etc.).
After obtaining characteristics describing an electronic document itself and the text within a given electronic document, these conventional tools analyze the text and the characteristics in order to provide additional useful information about the document. Frequently, this additional useful information is provided via a user interface, such as a graphical user interface displayed on a display screen. In this manner, a person using such a conventional tool can review the useful additional information and make changes to the underlying electronic document as needed. By way of example and not limitation, such additional useful information may include the following information about a given electronic document: information identifying all of the defined terms in the document, information identifying potentially inconsistent uses of phrases within the document, information identifying possible editing mistakes within the document, information identifying possible incomplete segments of the text within the document, etc.
The user interface that displays the useful additional information is often provided in a manner that allows it to be viewed simultaneously with the electronic document itself. Furthermore, the user interface is frequently interactive, such that if a user selects (e.g., by clicking a mouse) a particular piece of information being displayed in the user interface (e.g., a particular defined term among a list of defined terms), the view of the document in the word processing software user interface will change to, e.g., show the first instance of the defined term that was selected within the document. Accordingly, existing tools for performing document analysis, editing, and proofreading provide useful mechanisms for ensuring consistency and preventing ambiguity within electronic documents such as legal contracts.
However, existing tools for performing document analysis, editing, and proofreading also suffer from a number of drawbacks. For example, existing tools for performing document analysis, editing, and proofreading are known to require user intervention in order to update the tool's user interface after a change has been made to the text in the underlying document under analysis. Accordingly, a need exists for a method and apparatus designed to generate an updated user interface for displaying additional useful information without user intervention following a change to the text of the electronic document under analysis.
Another drawback of existing tools is the poor performance of existing tools in finding subtle errors and in differentiating between variations in the language of a document and unintended inconsistencies in a document. Existing tools can be under inclusive (i.e., not identifying unintended inconsistencies) or over inclusive (i.e., identifying normal variations in the language of a document). These drawbacks make the identification of errors and the correction of documents more difficult.